


in a sea change nothing is safe

by sophiahelix



Series: Tumblr Prompts [4]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: M/M, Paris (City), Tumblr Prompt, Yuri Gets Taller, Yuri is 17
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 12:16:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11646381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophiahelix/pseuds/sophiahelix
Summary: Yuri doesn't text him much over the next summer. Otabek gets several pictures of his cat, which he finds boring, and one early morning selfie. Yuri’s looking out the window, not at the camera, and the sun lights up his golden hair, spilling over the pillow.There's a kind of hushed stillness to it, like Yuri is caught in motion or holding his breath, and Otabek stares at it for a moment because it's so different to how he's used to seeing him. No snarl or rolled eyes, no smirk, no emotion at all, except that peaceful tension. Like Yuri’s waiting, or wondering.your hair is so long now, he sends back.





	in a sea change nothing is safe

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to mariekebrel, who gave me the prompt "sea change." 
> 
> While writing this I came across [this picture](http://sophia-helix.tumblr.com/post/163492822183/oh-no-i-just-found-yuri-plisetskys-offseason-look), which became my head canon for how Yuri looks at the end of the story. :D

_Kidnaps the fairy of Russia_ , Otabek reads, his lips twisting.

Yuri’s no fairy prince. He's not even as delicate as he looks; Otabek’s seen the muscle beneath his baggy shirts, the thick skater’s calluses and blisters on his feet. Yuri’s tough, resilient, unassailable. It's why Otabek wanted to know him better, all those years ago.

Yuri’s like him. Neither of them ever breaks.

***

Training in Almaty again is strange. The ice of the new rink is smooth, unscathed, and the complex is smaller than the ones he's been at before. The skaters are much younger, too, with hardly any even in their teens yet. Otabek knows all of this is because of him — the cramped indoor rink with raw pine paneling, the excitable, admiring children, the crowds at open skate — and it's one more thing to add to the weight of being Otabek Altin, hero of Kazakstan. He shoulders it with the rest.

Yuri texts him at odd hours, too late, like he's forgotten Otabek is three hours ahead. He probably has. Endless complaints about training, his rinkmates, things that happened to him during the day. _Some asshole took my umbrella_ or _the wifi is such shit at home_ or a row of knife emoji followed by a rice bowl and a dog, which Otabek takes to mean Yuuri and Victor are being insufferable. 

He doesn't really understand why Yuri texts him like this, things he could say to anyone and probably has, right to their faces. Otabek usually doesn't answer, or else he sends a generic sad face. It seems like Yuri’s just letting off steam anyway.

He's more interested in the video Yuri sends of his new routines. His quad toeloop is more solid than ever, and he's begun to do more of his jumps with raised arms for the extra difficulty. Yuri’s face in the video is sharp, focused, somewhere between joyful and furious, and Otabek smiles to see it. 

Otabek's own training is going well. He's tightening some technical issues, looking to pick up more GOE points and worry less about presentation. His coach is talking about maybe working on a lutz. The new rink still feels odd and unfinished, but Otabek thinks that good things are going to happen here.

At the end of the summer, just before Otabek goes to Italy to tune up at the Lombardia, Yuri texts him _I miss you_ in the middle of the night. When Otabek sees it the next morning, though, it's already been followed by pictures of Yuri’s new short program costume, his cat, and his breakfast, as well as an angry rant about the St Petersburg tram, so he just replies _hah_.

Otabek does Yuri a favor and deletes the first text. Everyone gets lonely in the middle of the night.

***

They don't see each other again until the Grand Prix final. Neither of them makes the podium; Otabek has been nursing an ankle injury and Yuri pops a couple of his free skate jumps. In truth Otabek’s lucky to have made it this far, with his ankle bothering him since October, and he's just trying to finish the season before he needs surgery. Next summer he’ll start again.

Yuri, he thinks, is finally growing. Otabek eyes him at warm ups the first day, thinking he seems taller on the ice, and when he skates over they're very nearly eye to eye.

“You grew,” Otabek says, bluntly.

Yuri glares. “Not that much.”

“How’s it affecting your jumps?” Otabek asks.

“It's not,” Yuri snaps. He does a quick turn and skates off into a near-perfect salchow.

It is, Otabek thinks, watching him the next two days. It's fine. Yuri will start again next summer too.

***

Otabek doesn't finish the season before he needs surgery. He's been under the knife before, for his knee when he was sixteen, and he'd rather have more recovery time than injure himself further. He's furious about it, but in a detached, useful way. He knows it can't be changed, but he still spends a lot of time with his headphones on, playing music so loud it's almost painful. He’ll get through this, like everything.

Yuri doesn't come close to medalling at Worlds, facing a tough crowd of established and new skaters. There's an American boy just out of juniors who lands six quads, and Victor’s polished flip, a sharper weapon than ever. Even the skaters Otabek’s used to beating easily, the Czech one and the Thai one, have increased the difficulty of their programs this year. Otabek aches to be there, fighting them all with the best he’s got, but he watches Yuri instead, texting the occasional encouragement.

It's good for Yuri to lose, he thinks. Yuri’s the kind of athlete who takes hardship and refines it, coming out stronger than before. If he kept winning after last season, he’d get soft. Or bored, like Victor. Yuri needs an edge.

 _watch that free leg when you're training this summer_ Otabek texts, after the final program ends and Yuri takes fifth place. _that's why you keep falling on the salchow_

He doesn't hear back from Yuri the rest of the night, which he expected, but in the morning he finds three texts in quick succession

_fuck you_

_thank you_

_fuck you_

***

Yuri doesn't text him much over the next summer. Otabek gets several pictures of his cat, which he finds boring, and one early morning selfie. Yuri’s looking out the window, not at the camera, and the sun lights up his golden hair, spilling over the pillow. 

There's a kind of hushed stillness to it, like Yuri is caught in motion or holding his breath, and Otabek stares at it for a moment because it's so different to how he's used to seeing him. No snarl or rolled eyes, no smirk, no emotion at all, except that peaceful tension. Like Yuri’s waiting, or wondering.

 _your hair is so long now_ , he sends back.

There's a pause, and then the dots as Yuri types. _I hate it. If I leave it this long everyone says I look like Victor and if I cut it they'll say that’s just like Victor too, or that I'm growing up or some bullshit._

Otabek thinks, for a long, considered moment. His own hairstyle was chosen partly because it's easier and partly to convey a certain image, to remind himself he's not just some pretty ice dancer. He knows who Yuri was, but he's not certain who he is now.

_what do you want to do with it_

The pause is longer this time. _nothing. it’s just hair._

Otabek thinks, suddenly, of things he’d like to do with Yuri’s hair. Run his fingers through it, wrap his fist in it. Pull. The thoughts take him by surprise; intrusive and out of keeping with the way they've always been. He coughs, clearing his throat.

_keep it then_

_maybe I'll shave it_ , Yuri shoots back, the way Otabek would expect him to respond to a direct request. 

Otabek smiles, shaking his head. _you'll really look like a soldier then_

He thinks of that, too, as he puts the phone down. The sharp angles of Yuri’s face revealed, the fierce brightness of his eyes exposed. Yuri himself unscreened, unsheathed. It's — something to think about.

***

Otabek goes to Paris half expecting to find Yuuri with a shaved head. Instead Yuri’s let his hair grow long and straggly, held back on one side in two braids. He’s also grown a few more centimeters, just passing Otabek, and he wears his height resentfully, without his old insouciant grace. He slouches against the wall in the dressing room, hair in his face, looking like he'd like to make himself smaller, invisible.

Otabek nods hello to him, walking by with his earphones on as he moves through his short program. He's not quite sure where they stand, and he doesn't like the way those images are creeping in again, his hands in Yuri’s hair. Yuri hasn't sent him video in a while, or bragged about his costumes or his new routines. His scowl has changed too, his eyes suspicious and bitter. 

Yuri will weather this, Otabek knows. He's always admired Yuri’s toughness, believed in him. But there's something in his gaze as Otabek passes, a flickering hint of distress beneath the tangled curtain of hair that stays with him through the rest of the day.

They're friends. They're alike. He's not so sure what that means anymore.

Otabek waits for Yuri to text him like always, but he doesn't. The competition begins and he sees why, because Yuri is a beautiful, unsteady disaster on the ice. The sudden shift in balance and length has upset everything, and only his fierce desperation keeps him upright, popping jumps and moving into slow spins that look nothing like before. It will take him all season to find his equilibrium, Otabek thinks, and that's only if he doesn't grow again.

When Yuri finishes he's furious, sweat running down from the hair piled on top of his head and tears shining in his eyes. There's no defeat in his form, no surrender in his clenched fists; he looks like he's been taken prisoner by his own body but he isn't giving up the fight. Otabek nods from the stands, approving.

His own short program goes well enough, putting him in third. He skates it with a strange unease, though, like something is coming, a wave it will take all his skill to navigate. Afterwards he showers and takes the metro to the Gare de Lyon, leaving the station to wander out into the old city.

Otabek loves Paris at night, the empty wet streets and the lights, the solemn, ornate white buildings above the river. It's a sentimental weakness he'd never admit to anyone, but it brings a refreshing peace to be surrounded by all this beauty, as alone as he can ever be in a big city. He's spent so much time training in the new, raw cities of the west, but Paris is like Almaty, ancient and settled and indifferent. 

He doesn't recognize the hooded figure leaning over the river embankment in the 5th arrondissement until he comes close enough to hear him weeping, stifled and rageful.

Otabek stops, his body gone still. He has the mechanical thought that Yuri wouldn't want to be seen like this, but it's displaced by the fluttering awareness of the streetlight on Yuri’s long yellow hair as he turns around. Yuri wipes one cheek with the back of his hand and regards Otabek for a long moment.

Something changes, with a quiet, rippling roar. Otabek opens his mouth to breathe, bracing himself against the rush, and closes his eyes. When he opens them it seems like all the colors are different, the light slant, the world new. Yuri stands by the river, his face half in shadow, and waits to be seen.

“Let's walk,” Otabek says.

There's an accordion playing somewhere. There's always an accordion playing somewhere in Paris. By his side Yuri is silent and lithe, tucked into the depths of his coat. Cars pass them, shearing through puddles, and between the splashes Otabek hears Yuri breathing, still thick and strained. He glances over, under a light, and sees the wetness gleaming on his cheek.

They turn to cross onto the Pont de l’Archevêché, relieved now of its heavy burden of lovers’ locks. Notre Dame rises beyond, solid and implacable, its flying buttresses lit from beneath and the rose window aglow. Otabek’s gaze is drawn to it, drinking in the splendor, and so he's surprised when Yuri stops and turns to shoulder him against the low bridge wall. 

Otabek looks into Yuri’s face. He knows his own eyes are wide, searching, and Yuri’s are too, still with the shine of tears. Yuri’s mouth is open as he breathes hard, and he grips the wall on either side of Otabek’s hips, holding him in place. Otabek feels all the old hot familiar energy from him, the formless fury, but it's just noise and always has been. There in Yuri’s eyes is what Otabek has always seen, the strength and power, but tonight there's a yearning need he's never acknowledged, an unguarded softness unveiled in this moment. This is Yuri, in truth and fullness.

He reaches up and puts his hands on Yuri’s face, gently. He feels Yuri’s sharp intake of breath, chest hitching close to his own. Slow, like the world is tilting him forward, Otabek leans in to brush their lips together, feeling Yuri’s heat and a shudder of air. He waits, for two quick beats of his heart, and then Yuri kisses him back.

It feels like he's caught something wild between his hands. Yuri shifts and sighs, his kisses hesitant one moment, passionate the next. Otabek keeps steady time, learning Yuri as he goes, holding fast. He draws back eventually, though, pressing words overcoming desire.

“I'm sorry,” he whispers, against Yuri’s mouth.

“What for,” Yuri mutters, roughly. His hands are tight on Otabek’s hips.

“For not knowing what you needed.”

“I don't need anything,” Yuri says immediately, but the catch in his voice belies it.

“That's all right,” Otabek says, and kisses him again. 

His hands are in Yuri’s hair and all he wants to do now is to keep them there. To lean into the change, everything new. Kissing beneath an autumn moon, the river drifting slow below their feet, the stone city around them and the ice far away. This moment of softness and need, somehow making something stronger together.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: [sophia-helix](http://sophia-helix.tumblr.com)


End file.
